Tag Archives: Vikrant Massey

Movie Review: Sector 36 (2024)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

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One of Netflix’s most challenging Original Hindi films makes insightful social commentary in a fictional retelling of a real-life tragedy.

Sector 36 is based on the 2006 Noida serial murders and takes place in approximately the same area at the same time. Over the course of a couple of years, more than twenty children go missing from a slum in Sector 36 populated by poor families who’ve migrated from other parts of India to find work near Delhi. Inspector Ram Charan Pandey (Deepak Dobriyal) — the police officer in charge of the area — tells each parent the same thing: the kid will turn up, just hang your “Missing” poster on the board with all of the other posters. That’s as far as his investigations ever go.

The audience already knows what’s happening to the missing children. They’re being abducted, raped, and murdered by Prem (Vikrant Massey), caretaker of a large home next to the slum owned by businessman Balwar Singh Bassi (Akash Khurana). Prem disposes of parts of the bodies in the sewers outside the house, so he isn’t going out of his way to conceal his crimes. Since the police won’t investigate, he can do what he wants.

That changes when Prem mistakenly tries to abduct Ram Charan’s daughter Vedu (Ihana Kaur) during a festival. Prem is masked, so Ram Charan doesn’t see his face after he drops Vedu and runs off. However, the close encounter is enough for the inspector to follow up on some of the tips provided by other parents of missing children, one of whom was last seen entering Bassi’s house.

It’s quite the indictment of Ram Charan’s lack of empathy that he isn’t compelled to act until his own daughter is endangered, but he’s undeterred once he begins. Yet he quickly realizes that his own prior laziness is not the only obstacle standing in the way of justice for the missing kids. His interview with Bassi is cut short when the businessman calls his old school friend, Jawahar Rastogi (Darshan Jariwala) — Ram Charan’s boss. Rastogi tells the inspector to back off and suspends him when he doesn’t.

At the same time that Ram Charan is warned against investigating further, the child of a rich industrialist is abducted and held for ransom. Every resource at the police department’s disposal is thrown at retrieving the child and catching his kidnappers. Ram Charan sees where the department’s priorities lie, and they aren’t with the citizens of Sector 36.

Systems theorist Stafford Beer coined the phrase: “The purpose of a system is what it does.” Sector 36 is a perfect example of that phenomenon. The purpose of the police force that Ram Charan works for is not to protect the innocent, or solve crimes in an effort to give them justice. It’s to protect the rich and keep the poor vulnerable–basically, to ensure nothing threatens the current power structure.

I’m not qualified to speak to caste elements that may factor into Sector 36‘s story, but the film does a wonderful job illustrating how those at the top of the class hierarchy foment discord among those beneath them in order to maintain their own positions. Ram Charan feels superior to those living in the slum he oversees and lords his authority over the officers working under him. Rastogi knows that any of those lower officers would jump at the chance to take Ram Charan’s place. Because Prem works in a comfortable house for a boss with connections, he feels superior to those migrant workers living in the slum, even though he came from a small village himself.

Yet even as powerful men like Bassi and Rastogi purport to look out for those who report to them, they really only look out for one another. They use the system to maintain their protected positions. Ram Charan, Prem, the other cops, and the migrant workers all have more in common with one another than Bassi or Rastogi — but you could never convince any of them that that’s true.

Director Aditya Nimbalkar and screenwriter Bodhayan Roychaudhury convey all this through compelling character interactions and clever pacing. There’s a real level of finesse from a first-time feature director and first-time screenwriter. It’s a little less surprising when you realize that Nimbalkar previously worked as an associate director for Vishal Bhardwaj, whose productions are basically a farm system for future directorial talent.

The main thing working against Sector 36 early on — besides a subject matter that will be too intense for some — is that it’s disgusting. The camera cuts between shots of a human body being chopped and a shots of a butcher chopping meat. It feels like a cheap shock tactic.

That said, it’s worth enduring the gore for career performances by Massey and Dobriyal. This will likely be the most vile character Massey ever plays, and he makes Prem as intriguing as he is loathsome. Dobriyal shines as a character who is flawed and complicated and up against a system that makes it hard for him to be his best self. His performance is outstanding.

Sector 36 is not an easy film to watch, not just because of the crimes that inspired it but because of what it reveals about the system that allowed them to happen in the first place (and that still exists). As grim as the movie is, the only way to imagine a better world is to really examine what’s wrong with the one we have now.

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Movie Review: Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba (2024)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba on Netflix

Taapsee Pannu and Vikrant Massey reprise the chaotic lovers Rani and Rishu from 2021’s Haseen Dillruba in Netflix’s first Original movie sequel: Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba (“Beautiful Beloved is Back” — and yes, there’s now an extra ‘s’ in Hasseen).

Familiarity with the first film is essential to understanding the characters and why they are living the way they are in the sequel (which takes place several years after the original). Thankfully, Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba offers a plot summary via a song montage within the first ten minutes. It’s a sufficient memory refresher for those who’ve watched the original.

As in Haseen Dillruba, the sequel begins with Rani (Pannu) in the middle of a crisis. She runs into a police station on a rainy night, claiming that her husband is trying to kill her. The action then flashes back to two months earlier. Rani lives in Agra and tells everyone she’s a widow, but the truth is her husband Rishu (Massey) is actually alive and living in town as well. They meet secretly in a park with a view of the Taj Mahal and plan their escape to Thailand, where they can finally be together again.

Of course things don’t go as planned. Inspector Kishore Jamwal (Aditya Srivastava, whose character was named Kishore Rawat in the original) still believes that Rani is a murderer, and he tracks her down in Agra. Worse, he’s brought along tenacious police officer Mritunjay Prasad (Jimmy Shergill), who happens to be the uncle of Rani’s affair partner Neel from the first movie. “Uncle Montu” won’t rest until he finds Rishu and makes him and Rani pay.

To confuse the cops, Rani proposes marriage to love-struck pharmacist Abhimanyu (Sunny Kaushal, who plays smitten beautifully). She warns him that her heart will always belong to Rishu, but Abhimanyu says he’s okay with that — until he finds out that Rishu is still alive.

Though Jayprad Desai directs Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba — and capably so — the franchise is the brainchild of screenwriter Kanika Dhillon. Mystery series are often centered around detectives, so there’s novelty in having the protagonists be criminals while still hitting all the necessary genre beats. The surprising character developments of the first film are largely absent since Rani and Rishu are known quantities, but that adds a pleasant feeling of familiarity.

In the best mysteries, there’s an element of “play along at home” that the viewer engages in, trying to figure out what’s going on before the writer reveals the solution. While there are some nice setups and payoffs, the ultimate revelations seem to come out of nowhere. More obvious possibilities are ignored in favor of answers that are totally unpredictable.

Part of why this happens is that Rani’s character is a fan of a fictitious mystery author Danish Pandit, and his works are continually referenced. Were Rani a fan of Agatha Christie, well-read viewers would be able to spot allusions to her books and guess where the story is going. But the Haseen Dillruba movies are tethered to the internal logic of an imaginary author’s bibliography, allowing Dhillon to explain everything away via a connection to Pandit. Everything makes sense if you’re a fan of Danish Pandit — but no one but Dhillon is, because Pandit isn’t real.

Nevertheless, Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba is consistently entertaining, with interesting performances throughout. If there’s a way to keep this franchise going, I hope Dhillon comes back for a third round.

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Movie Review: 12th Fail (2023)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Watch 12th Fail on Hulu

Even though 12th Fail is based on the life of a real person, the film feels abstracted from its main character. The story contains a number of obstacles that can trip up viewers unfamiliar with the hiring processes of the Indian civil service.

Vikrant Massey plays Manoj Kumar Sharma, who grew up in a poor, rural village but studied and sacrificed to become a member of the Indian Police Service (IPS). Obviously, the movie doesn’t need to explain what the IPS is to Indian viewers, but it’s not made clear to outsiders how, say, an IPS officer differs from a DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police). The film uses a lot of abbreviations that blur together for those not steeped in the shorthand.

The story begins in 1997 when Manoj is a teenager in Chambal. The area is known for its bandits, and the mayor runs the village on bribes and corruption. Newly transferred DSP Dushyant Singh (Priyanshu Chatterjee) arrests the school principal for encouraging students to cheat on their exams. Manoj is so inspired by the righteous DSP that he vows to study and become an IPS officer.

Even Manoj is surprised at just how labyrinthine the process to become an Indian civil servant is — and just how small the odds of success are. After passing high school, there are multiple exams: some multiple choice, some essay, including some in English. Students get four total attempts to pass the exams, and that’s it. If they pass their exams, they still have to clear a brutal final interview.

The process can take years to complete, which makes it hard for anyone who has to work while studying. Everyone who takes the tests pays for exam coaching, further weeding out many poor and working class applicants.

Manoj heads to the city of Gwailor to pursue coaching, only to be robbed before finding the coaching center shut down. He gets lucky when he meets Pritam Pandey (Anant V Joshi), another prospective student. Pritam’s family has money, so he takes Manoj with him to Delhi. The two stay friends even as Manoj works a series of low-wage jobs, studying into the wee hours of the night.

Writer-director Vidhu Vinod Chopra makes Pritam the narrator of Manoj’s story, which creates a distance between the audience and the main character. As the narrative proceeds, it becomes clear that the character Manoj portrays in the film is mostly a generic symbol of underprivileged test takers–and not an interesting character, himself. As Manoj’s lower caste friend Gauri (Anshumann Pushkar) says, “Even if one of us wins, the whole herd wins.” But if we don’t care about the one, it’s that much more difficult to be invested in the herd.

Despite featuring Manoj’s friends and eventual girlfriend Shraddha (Medha Shankar), it doesn’t feel like we get much insight into Manoj. He’s determination personified, but that’s about it. Massey’s performance in the lead role is solid.

In addition to the movie’s characterization issues, the studying and test-taking processes are shown in greater detail than is necessary, bogging down the pace.

The real Manoj’s accomplishments are inspirational, but 12th Fail itself is a bit dull.

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Movie Review: Gaslight (2023)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

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A young woman returns home to mend her relationship with her estranged father, only to find him missing in Gaslight. The creepy but unambitious mystery does just enough to keep viewers hooked until the end.

Meesha (Sara Ali Khan) hasn’t seen her father Ratan Singh Gaikwad since she was a little girl, before the accident that left Meesha unable to walk. Her childhood in the family’s ancestral palace was happy until Ratan had an affair with Rukmani (Chitrangda Singh). Meesha and her mother moved away, but Mom never got over the breakup and killed herself.

Years later, Meesha receives a surprise letter from her father asking her to come home for a visit. When she arrives, she’s greeted by Rukmani — now her father’s wife — who assures the young woman that Ratan is away on a work emergency and will return in a few days. But that night, Meesha sees a man she thinks is her father. She gets in her wheelchair and follows him to a remote part of the palace, only to fall down some stairs when she’s startled by a loud noise.

Though Meesha at first thinks that her father is in the house, a series of frightening incidents convince her that Ratan is actually dead — but no one believes her. Not Rukmani or the family physician Dr. Shekhawat (Shishir Sharma). Only sympathetic, handsome estate manager Kapil (Vikrant Massey) humors Meesha, while warning her to be careful of Rukmani and her allies.

Gaslight is legitimately frightening at times. Besides Meesha’s eerily preserved childhood bedroom, the palace is full of scary artwork. Bold is the homeowner who thinks Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son is suitable decor for a family abode.

The film could have pushed the spooky factor further by advancing Rukmani’s subplot in the story. At one point, she also begins to see things that aren’t there, which — had it happened in conjunction with Meesha seeing things at night — could have elevated the possibility of a supernatural cause for Ratan’s absence. Instead, Rukmani’s subplot isn’t highlighted until the second half of the film, after Meesha has already articulated her own, non-supernatural theory as to what is happening (a theory many in the audience will likely share by that point in the story).

Gaslight writer-director Pavan Kirpalani proved his ability to craft a chilling story with previous films like Phobia and Bhoot Police (both of which I thoroughly enjoyed). His latest feature leaves enough questions unanswered throughout to entice viewers to see things through, and the cast does a fine job with the material. Rahul Dev is good in a small role as a cop who is a more attentive investigator than he initially appears to be. It would have been nice if the film’s character development had avoided reinforcing traditional class hierarchy, but Gaslight doesn’t aspire to be more than what it is.

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Movie Review: Haseen Dillruba (2021)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Haseen Dillruba on Netflix

The appeal of many murder mysteries is the final revelation of how the crime was committed (especially if the killer gets away with it). Though Haseen Dillruba (“Beautiful Beloved“) has a fiery payoff, the question of why the deed was done is far more interesting.

The film opens with an explosion in a residential neighborhood in the small city of Jwalapur, north of Delhi. Rani (Taapsee Pannu) is outside her home when a gas cylinder in her kitchen ignites. She identifies her husband’s body by his wrist bearing a tattoo of her name — the only part of him that hasn’t been incinerated.

Police Inspector Rawat (Aditya Srivastava) is convinced that Rani murdered her husband Rishu (Vikrant Massey), though she protests her innocence. Rawat’s interrogation triggers flashbacks to various points in the couple’s relationship, which Rani describes as, “sometimes good, sometimes not so good.”

Rani and Rishu get together via an arranged marriage. Both of them seem to have gotten through life doing the bare minimum to make themselves desirable marriage candidates, but not doing much to make themselves complete people. Shy Rishu has a stable engineering job, and Rani is pretty and a capable cosmetologist. Neither has any experience in communicating with a romantic partner nor any instinct for nurturing intimacy. Living with Rishu’s parents only adds to the pressure on the new couple.

All of Rani’s ideas about romance come from books by her favorite author Dinesh Pandit, who writes pulp novels about small-town murder mysteries. Rani quotes Pandit so often that the fictitious author is almost a character in his own right.

When Rani blabs about her and Rishu’s non-existent sex life to her family, Rishu gives her the silent treatment. This leaves Rani lonely and vulnerable when Rishu’s beefcake cousin Neel (Harshvardhan Rane) comes to stay with the family. Neel is as exciting as Rishu is mild, and he’s more than happy to give Rani the attention that Rishu withholds from her.

It takes Rani’s affair with Neel for both Rani and Rishu to become interesting people. It strains credulity a bit that both members of the married couple are so bland beforehand, but the wild trajectories their personalities take from that point is what makes the movie really intriguing. Rishu develops a violent streak and Rani a corresponding capacity to endure punishment. It’s nuts, but it works.

It’s worth considering how problematic Rishi’s violence toward Rani is within the context of the film. For some, a blanket condemnation of all violence perpetrated by men against women will make Rishu’s actions untenable. Within the world created by director Vinil Mathew and screenwriter Kanika Dhillon, the sequence where Rishu repeatedly tries to injure Rani is less about his actions and more about Rani’s willingness (or desire, even) to endure any punishment to atone for her transgression.

The sequence also highlights how screwed up Rani and Rishu actually are when forced to reckon with intense emotions. It’s something that is hinted at early in the film via Amar Mangrulkar’s unusual score, which ping-pongs between somber and melodramatic to sitcom-esque wacky, depending on the scene. The musical choices are slightly off-putting but effective at establishing that this is not a movie about an ordinary couple.

All three leads are effective in their roles, with Rane embracing his eye-candy avatar. Pannu is competent as always. Massey stands out as an ordinary man with a dark edge he didn’t realize he possessed. Haseen Dillruba isn’t perfect, but it’s certainly entertaining.

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Movie Review: Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare (2020)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare on Netflix

Anemic character development undercuts Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare‘s (“Dolly, Kitty, and Those Twinkling Stars“) ambitions to be a movie about something important. Many important things, really.

The film opens so abruptly that I thought I’d accidentally fast-forwarded through the film’s real opening scene. Within the first three minutes, Kaajal (Bhumi Pednekar) confesses to her cousin Dolly (Konkona Sen Sharma) that Dolly’s husband Amit (Aamir Bashir) hit on her. Dolly dismisses Kaajal’s claim, saying maybe it’s Kaajal who’s hot for Amit. Roll opening credits.

This major family conflict is set up before we’ve learned anything about the characters involved. We don’t know who they are, what their relationships were like before this, or what this means for them going forward.

Without giving us any reason to care about these characters, the story launches them into an escalating series of circumstances to which they must react. Kaajal moves out, but she can only find a bed in a charity boarding house for unwed mothers. There she befriends a Muslim party girl named Shazia (Kubbra Sait from Sacred Games) whose boyfriend’s brother leads a far right Hindu-nationalist gang. Kaajal gets a job as a phone sex operator for an online app — a job that grosses her out since she has zero romantic experience — where she’s given the nickname “Kitty.”

Meanwhile, Dolly is enduring workplace gender bias in order to earn a down payment for a newly built luxury apartment (even though it should be obvious to her that the builders are running some kind of racket). Her marriage with Amit is sexually unfulfilling, and she develops a crush on a cute delivery driver names Osman (Amol Parashar). Also, Dolly’s youngest son Pappu (Kalp Shah) is starting to assert a gender identity that is more feminine than masculine.

The movie presents Dolly and Kaajal with plenty of challenges, but it doesn’t establish a real narrative or explain how the characters need to grow before the story ends. Including as many social justice issues as possible — Kaajal is also threatened with sexual assault by strangers and acquaintances multiple times — takes precedence over plot and character development.

Kaajal is written as so naive and devoid of personality that she seems like she sprung into being just before the movie begins. We can see how Dolly has been shaped by her circumstances, but they seem to have mostly made her mean. She hits Kaajal more than once, and she beats Pappu so seriously after he tries to use the girls’ bathroom at school that it’s difficult to watch.

Sen Sharma and Pednekar give intriguing performances as always, as does Vikrant Massey as a client who uses Kitty’s app. The subplot between Dolly and Osman is compelling and enjoyable. There just wasn’t enough to the characters in Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare to truly connect with them

Links

  • Dolly Kity Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare at Wikipedia
  • Dolly Kity Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare at IMDb

Movie Review: Cargo (2019)

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3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Cargo on Netflix

Some movies win you over on charm alone. That’s not the only thing that Cargo has going for it, but it’s more than enough to make this an endearing film.

Cargo is set in the year 2027, in an alternate timeline where a truce between demons and humans governs the world. As part of the truce, for the last seventy-five years, demons have handled humans’ transitions after death from a number of large spaceships orbiting Earth.

One of those ships is Pushpak 634-A, piloted by the demon Prahastha (Vikrant Massey). As one of the six original astronauts sent to space to handle Post Death Transition Services, Prahastha has been happily alone for seventy-five years. (Although they look like humans, demons age more slowly, apparently.) He’s not pleased when Ground Control sends him an assistant: an eager young astronaut named Yuvishka (Shweta Tripathi).

All demons have a magical ability, and Yuvishka’s is the ability to heal injuries. This is a particularly useful skill, since one of the steps in prepping dead humans for reincarnation is repairing injuries and ailments, and all of the equipment Prahastha has on-hand is outdated and falling apart. His main control center is a desk with a bunch of knobs, a printing calculator, and a CRT TV monitor.

The low-tech equipment that went into its design makes sense within the context of the story — the ship is almost eight decades old, after all — but it’s also a reminder that Cargo was made on a minimal budget. Props are used so thoughtfully that the film has a distinct, pleasing visual style. One may notice the absence of high-tech effects and CGI, but Cargo is so well designed that it never feels like it’s missing anything.

The staging and props evoke nostalgia for science fiction films and shows of the 20th century, which is appropriate since Cargo hews more closely to the tone of the original Star Trek series than to contemporary sci-fi. There’s nothing grim or dark about Cargo. It’s about the exploration of the human condition, not a battle against an existential threat. The focused story muses on life, death, and what comes after through the experiences of its two leads. Prahastha writes letters to a woman he used to love, but he never sends them. Yuvishka thought that becoming an astronaut would finally make her feel like she mattered.

Greeting and processing dead people as they arrive on the ship just reminds Prahastha and Yuvishka of what’s at stake, both for mortals with short lifespans but for themselves as well. Many of the dead ask if they can speak with a loved one for a final time. Others wonder what the point of their life really was. Prahstha and Yuvishka collect the belongings from each person, waiting until after they’ve moved on to launch those belongings into space. As the saying goes, “You can’t take it with you.”

Cargo‘s plot is tertiary to its atmosphere and characters, moving at an unhurried pace that allows the audience to get to know the crew of Pushpak 634-A and enjoy spending time with them. Massey and Tripathi work beautifully together and are so comfortable to be around. Writer-director Arati Kadav achieved something really special with her debut feature. Cargo didn’t overstay its welcome, but it also left me wanting more.

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Movie Review: Chhapaak (2020)

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2.5 Stars (out of 4)

Filmmaker Meghna Gulzar has handled tricky real-life topics before, choosing a true crime story as the subject of her terrific thriller Talvar. For her latest film Chhapaak (“Splash“), Gulzar tackles another challenging topic, that of acid attacks on women. While informative, Chhapaak‘s plot lacks emotional punch.

Like Talvar, Chhapaak‘s narrative is non-linear. It begins in 2012, as a brutal gang rape in Delhi turns public attention toward violence against women. Twenty-something Malti (Deepika Padukone) struggles to find work, years after her face was severely scarred with acid. A reporter eager to revive interest in Malti’s story connects her with Amol (Vikrant Massey), who gives Malti a job at the non-governmental organization he runs aiding acid attack victims.

The job triggers a flashback to Malti’s own attack when she was nineteen. A much older family friend, Babbu (Vishal Dahiya), burned her when she rebuffed his marriage proposal. The acid scarred most of Malti’s face, requiring months of recovery and multiple surgeries over several years. The court battle to convict Babbu takes even longer. Malti’s dogged lawyer Archana (Madhurjeet Sarghi) is determined to see Babbu sentenced not just for the physical injury he caused but for attempted murder, in a move to force the courts to treat acid attacks more seriously than the law currently does.

A surprising amount of Chhapaak‘s story is devoted to the details of the court proceedings in Malti’s case and her subsequent petition for a federal ban on the sale of acid. Archana and her legal team debate strategies and counterarguments in long scenes where Malti isn’t even present. During trial scenes, Malti often sits quietly behind her lawyers without participating.

It’s an odd choice to sideline the film’s marquee star for such scenes, which are more educational than they are emotional. They also take time away from aspects of Malti’s story that are underdeveloped, chiefly relationships within her family. There’s a simmering resentment between Malti’s mother and wealthy aunt Shiraz (Payal Nair), who pays for Malti’s surgeries, but we don’t know their history. We also don’t know anything about the relationship between Malti and her younger brother. In the aftermath of her attack, he’s ignored so completely that no one in the house realizes he’s developed tuberculosis. The siblings never have a conversation about how their lives changed because of what was done to Malti.

The problem with the way Gulzar and co-writer Atika Chohan use the non-linear format in Chhapaak is that flashbacks to who Malti was before the attack are saved until very late in the film. Only then do we get a glimpse of her friendships and her dreams for the future. The acid attack changed Malti externally but internally as well, but holding back information about who Malti was means we only see her reckoning with her external changes, not her internal ones.

I suspect some of this stems from the fact that Malti is based on a real woman who is still very much alive. 29-year-old Laxmi Agarwal survived an acid attack as a teen and later became a prominent activist and television personality. Perhaps in deference to Agarwal, Chhapaak‘s focus steers away from its heroine’s internal struggles and family drama to her courtroom victories and romantic relationship with Amol. (With regard to that, Padukone and Massey do share a charming chemistry.)

That aspect of the story feeds into the thing that Chhapaak does best, which is encourage its audience to see past the damage done by the acid to the person within. The prosthetics used on Padukone are well-crafted, changing with each of Malti’s surgeries. Gulzar also cast real acid attack survivors to play the other workers at the NGO.

Yet, even at the very end, Gulzar can’t resist centering Chhapaak on the issue rather than the characters. The film’s brief final scene (not a spoiler) introduces some new women who are splashed with acid, followed by a note that one of them died as a result, followed by a still of written statistics about acid attacks in India. No one would have assumed that, just because the film shows progress being made that the problem of acid attacks was magically solved, rendering this scene unnecessary.

While Chhapaak deserves credit for shining light on a worthy subject, it could have been done in a way that was more narratively satisfying.

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Movie Review: Half Girlfriend (2017)

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0.5 Stars (out of 4)

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Half Girlfriend is a tiresome retread of a familiar Bollywood setup. The world within the film exists for the manipulation and satisfaction of the male lead character, regardless of the toll it takes on the woman he pursues.

Just as in another problematic movie from earlier in 2017 — Badrinath Ki Dulhania — Half Girlfriend tries to justify its outdated formula by having its main character hail from a state with a bad reputation regarding gender equality. Half Girlfriend‘s Madhav (Arjun Kapoor) is from Bihar, a state that borders Badrinath’s Uttar Pradesh. Neither movie is interested in actually addressing the causes or consequences of inequality in either state, just in appropriating a regressive mindset so that the female lead can be treated as a prop rather than a real person.

Lest we dismiss Madhav as some uneducated hick, the story — based on a book by Chetan Bhagat and adapted for the screen by Tushar Hiranandani and Ishita Moitra — emphasizes that he’s the son of a royal family. He lives in a mansion with his mother (played by Seema Biswas), who runs a school in their small town.

Yet, Madhav is so privileged and insulated that only after he graduates with a degree in sociology from St. Stephens College in Delhi does he ask his mother, “Why don’t any girls attend our school?” How did he not notice that earlier?!

As with so many Bollywood heroes before him, it’s Madhav’s job to bend the universe to his will. That primarily takes the form of him forcing everyone to engage with him in Hindi, even though instruction at St. Stephens is conducted exclusively in English. No matter how high the stakes, Madhav steadfastly refuses to apply himself enough to become proficient in English. The movie rewards him at every turn by having English speakers claim to have understood Madhav’s “heart,” if not his words.

Then there’s Riya (Shraddha Kapoor), with whom Madhav is smitten on first sight. “Such a beautiful girl plays basketball?” he wonders, insultingly. He’s apparently never heard of hoops legend/fashion model Lisa Leslie, which is surprising since Madhav’s a b-ball nut and a big fan of “Steven Curry.”

The basketball in Half Girlfriend is absolutely terrible, by the way. The camera only shoots the actors from the shoulders up since apparently neither of them learned how to dribble for their roles as college athletes. (Frankly, their entire performances in Half Girlfriend lack commitment.) Also, a scene in which Madhav wildly airballs dozens of attempted half-court shots is unbelievable. That’s a shot serious basketball players practice for fun from an early age.

Once Madhav decides that he wants beautiful, popular Riya for his own, he follows her everywhere, memorizing every detail she posts on Facebook. They strike up a friendship on the court, but she’s clearly not interested in him romantically. She pulls her hand away whenever he tries to touch it. Well, she tries to, but Madhav literally won’t let her go.

Madhav’s roommate Shailesh (Vikrant Massey) — who is otherwise the voice of reason in the film — says that the only way to know Riya’s feelings for sure is to “get her in the room.” In case that didn’t sound rapey enough, Madhav locks the door once Riya is inside. When Riya resists Madhav’s attempted seduction (the author writes euphemistically), he gets violent with her. Riya refuses to talk to him after that, triggering a sad musical montage of Madhav screwing up in a basketball game because he’s too upset to concentrate. Boo hoo.

Madhav’s violence toward Riya renders a romance between them unsatisfactory. However, because we know the beats of the male-entitlement Bollywood romance storyline, we know that Riya won’t be able to rid herself of Madhav that easily.

Half Girlfriend is monstrously unfair to Riya. Every man in her life is abusive to her in some way.  While Madhav claims to love Riya, he refuses to accept a relationship with her on her terms; he wants to possess her. Rather than protecting Riya, the older women in her life insist that she tolerate the intolerable and put a man’s needs before her own. Riya is utterly alone. If told from her perspective, Half Girlfriend would be a horror movie.

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